Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy (Italian Poetry in Translation Book 2)

a participatory ethical and human tension,

his philosophical credo can be summed up in

the apparently conflictual “and I don’t care,”

which reveals rather his all-important

literary preoccupation. This can materialize

in the numerous metaphors, in alliteration,

onomatopoeia, metonymy, in the occurrence

of varied stanzaic forms (with frequent use

of the Sapphic), in the variety of meter, and

in the complexity of the sound patterns. So

that dialect itself ultimately tends towards a

sort of “illustrious speech” of Dantean

memory, language of poetry, in a way

“reflected,”^4 if one likes, but personal in the

results.

Totally emancipated from any regional

conditioning, characterized by linguistic

experimentation and contemporary themes,

is the poetry of Dante Maffia (born in 1946),

who applies himself to it with the same